The Girl in the Safe
by bewitched-fan24
Summary: Booth and Brennan find Susie's body. They investigate how she died and, more importantly, who her murderer was. Mr Harvey didn't die in this story. All Brennan's POV except for the prologue.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Susie's POV (from Heaven)

My name is Salmon, like the fish. First name Susie. I was 14 years old when I was murdered on December 6th, 1973. My body was found, but not until after 35 years of my murder. It was 2 young men in their 20's that found my body one morning as they were pulling up that sink hole to build over it. It had been years since that sink hole had been used and now they had decided to empty as much as they could to build a new block of apartments. When they pulled up the safe that contained my remains, there was dried up blood seeping out through the cracks of the door. There didn't seem to be a smell coming from the safe, but the men knew something wasn't right about it. The door was slightly open and as they pulled it open further, they gasped. They were on the phone immediately.


	2. Chapter 1

I woke to the sound of my mobile blaring the ringtone I had personalised for Booth. I sat up in bed wearily and picked up the phone.

"Hello, Booth," I said with a groan of tiredness.

"Bones, we have a case." I looked over towards the digital clock sitting on my bedside table. 4:00 am. I groaned and replied with: "I will be at the Jeffersonian in 1 hour."

I hung up and slowly got out of bed.

In 1 hour, I was standing on the front steps of the Jeffersonian Institute waiting for my partner. He arrived not that long after and when everything was settled, we were off. According to Booth, the remains had been found in a small town just outside of Philadelphia called Norristown. When we arrived at the sink hole of Norristown, I immediately saw why I was called to the scene. The remains sat inside a big, green safe. Its door sat open on an angle at approximately 45 degrees. When Cam saw us getting out of Booth's SUV, she walked towards us with a man in his mid 20's.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth, Dr Temperance Brennan," Cam introduced us to the man. "This is Mark Holder. He is one of the men who found the body last night." Booth nodded towards the remains.

"Any information yet?" I walked over to the safe, bending down so I could see the remains clearly. Putting on some gloves, I said to the agent, "It's female. Caucasian. She looks to be in her early teens. Approximately 160 centre metres tall." Booth nodded again and Cam raised her eyebrows.

"How long has she been dead for?" Cam asked, looking rather pleased, although I wasn't quite sure why.

"We need to take this safe and the remains back to the lab," I told Cam. Booth went over to the owner of the sink hole, whose name I have forgotten, and had a chat about the remains that had been found.

"Angela, can you run the skull through the facial recognition to see if anyone on the missing persons file matches?" Angela nodded and took the skull from my grasp. She turned around and left the forensics platform with a glance over her shoulder. "There are some of the bones missing," I stated to Cam, who nodded at the observation.

"Half of the humorous is present and the ulna and the radius are missing completely," she observed, pointing towards the left side of the body. I was curious as to why the ulna, the radius and half of the humorous were not with the rest of the body.

"It is obvious that suffocation was not cause of death," I announced to the rest of the team.

Angela came back then and had told Cam and I that she was able to draw a face from the skull and is now running it through the facial recognition. She showed her drawing and smiled.

"I drew her smiling 'cause that is how she would have been before her death."

Cam and I followed Angela into her office, after removing our gloves, and stopped in front of her computer. The facial recognition had finished and one picture was up on the screen.

"Her name is Susie Salmon, aged 14, reported missing by Abigail Salmon on December the 10th, 1973," Angela read.

"Well done, Angela," I praised her. "I should tell Booth that we found the victim's identity." Cam nodded and added: "Maybe you should talk to Abigail Salmon. She might know something." I pulled out my mobile and dialled Booth's number while walking to my office.

"Booth."

"We have found the identity of our victim. Susie Salmon, aged 14."

"That's great, Bones." He sounded flat when he said that.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Who are we talking to?"

"Her name is Abigail Salmon."


	3. Chapter 2

Abigail Salmon was a tall lady. She sat patiently on her living room couch, waiting for us to begin.

"We found some human remains this morning." Booth glanced at me with an annoyed look on his face. "What?"

"Way to be subtle, Bones." He whispered it loudly so that I could hear, but not too loudly so that Abigail couldn't.

"Why did you report your daughter missing, Ms Salmon?" Abigail looked Booth in the eye while I sat back and listened.

"She didn't come home from school one day. The police had investigated a little, but haven't received any proper information." Booth sighed in preparation for the news he was about to give.

"Ms Salmon, some human remains have been found, and we have conformation that they belong to your daughter."

"What?" Abigail gave a little gasp, but that was it. Booth raised his eyebrow.

"You don't seem too surprised, Ms Salmon." Abigail shook her head.

"A few days after I reported her missing, one of the neighbours' dogs had brought back someone's elbow. I had a feeling that it was my daughter's, but I didn't want to believe it." I nodded and smiled to myself. So that is where the rest of the bones went. I looked up at the woman.

"Do you know of anyone who would want your daughter dead?" Abigail shook her head.

"Susie was loved by all. I can't believe she is actually dead! After 35 years of not knowing!"

"Are you sure?" Booth asked intensively "Had anyone hurt your daughter before or maybe even said something threatening to her?"

She sighed and sat still, thinking until finally she spoke again.

"No. I don't think so." Booth nodded and looked Abigail in the eye.

"Who was the owner of the sinkhole?"

Abigail looked at Booth, confused.

"We found the victim in the sink hole," I intervened. Booth glared at me.

"What Dr Brennan means is that we found your daughter in a green safe in the sink hole."

"Back then it was the Fergusons."

When Booth and I got back to the lab, I saw that Vincent Nigel-Murray was studying the bones and Cam was scrubbing off what little flesh remained on the bones. I could see from the entrance on my right hand side that Angela was in her office doing some work I suspected was part of the case. With her was Dr Hodgins, who I could tell was not doing any work, at least not on the case. I went to my office to drop off my bag and grab my lab coat and then went back to the forensics platform to help Vincent out. Snapping on a pair of gloves, I looked at the bones in front of me carefully.

"Where's Dr Hodgins?" Cam had lifted her head from the remains and was now looking around the platform for said doctor. At that moment, Hodgins walked up onto the platform and took one look at the body.

"I need you to take a look at this fibre. I don't think that the victim was wearing it, and could lead us to who the murderer was." Hodgins nodded, took the fibre and placed it under the microscope.

"It is dyed cashmere," he exclaimed, after taking a look into the microscope. "Commonly used in scarves and fine coats."

"Was it common in the 70's?" she asked. Hodgins shook his head.

"$30 a pound." Cam's eyes widened.

"Definitely not the victim's then?"

"It's hard to tell exactly what this fibre was originally, but it's very unlikely that it was the victims." Cam nodded and took a look at the body again. Moments later, Vincent broke the silence.

"Did you know that cashmere has been manufactured in Nepal for many years?"

"That is very interesting," I answered him. "But not relevant to the case." I bent back down over the remains and began to study the bones in more depth. I tilted my head slightly and picked up the cut off humorous. It looks like the bone had been cut off from the rest of the bones. I put down the humorous and looked at the rest of the joints on the bones. All of them had the same cut mark.

"What's this?" I said more to myself, pointing to what looked like a serrated edge on the bone.


End file.
